Solution Sought on Soviet Jewish Emigrants Who Do Not Go to Israel

July 19, 1976

JERUSALEM (Jul. 18)

The problem of “Neshira” – drop-out of Soviet Jewish emigrants en route to Israel which has been topping 50 percent — was discussed here last Thursday at a top-level meeting of government and Jewish Agency leaders. A large communique, deliberately unrevealing on this sensitive matter, said all present had agreed to set up an eight-man committee, representing all parties involved, which would report back within 90 days. Among those at the meeting was Premier Yitzhak Rabin, several ministers, Jewish Agency Board Chairman Max Fisher, Agency Chairman Yosef Almogi, and other leaders. Agency sources told JTA that the meeting on “neshira” was perhaps the most important and most meaningful aspect of the entire week of Agency Assembly deliberations.

The sources, too, would not reveal details of the discussion. They said representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee and of HIAS — two organizations which have been rendering assistants to the “noshrim” — were present. Almogi and others have warned that a 50-percent plus “neshira” rate could endanger all Soviet emigration.